Lost and Found
by peppymint
Summary: A Cory Raines fic. Based off "Cardinal Experiences" by auberus11 with her permission. Hope you enjoy, and please review.


_I do not own Highlander_

_Inspiration for this fic goes to the tremendously talented auberus11_

_She was the one who brilliantly figured out what happened to Cory's sword_

_If you haven't read her story "Cardinal Experiences" I suggest you check it out_

**Lost and Found**

Duncan MacLeod of the clan MacLeod, stalwart highland warrior, glowered up at the slightly taller man, an impressive scowl fixed on his gypsy dark features. Pity the subject of his ire didn't seem affected in the least. But then, he thought a bit unkindly. It was unlikely anything smaller than a two by four would make it through the other's thick skull.

"Careful Mackie-boy," Cory warned, flinging a friendly arm over the highlander's shoulder. He offered the highlander a bright smile. "You don't want your face to freeze like that." It really was too easy to get under Duncan's skin. Of course, that was what made it so fun.

The Scot quickly shrugged off the arm, his glare going up a notch. Slowly, Duncan took a deep breath and counted to ten. Once again reminding himself that being the most annoying man on the face of the planet was not sufficient grounds for him to issue a challenge to the thief, no matter how tempting it sometimes was. Plus, Amanda would kill him, probably more than once. For some reason he still couldn't fathom, she liked Cory.

And vice versa, which brought up another point. "Why are you here anyway?" Duncan asked, looking around the auction house. "I wouldn't think this was your kind of place." Not unless he was planning on robbing it anyway. As much as he hated watching the two immortal thieves together, Cory was much more likely to seek out Amanda's company than his.

The professional bank robber shrugged. "Would you accompany Amanda on a shopping spree?" he answered Duncan's question with one of his own. He had made that mistake only once. The weight of her bags alone had nearly dislocated his back, not to mention the boxes.

The highlander couldn't quite stop the small smile that spread across his face. No, he wouldn't. Though he quickly wiped the expression away when he noticed Cory looking.

A smirk spread across the other immortal's features and his green eyes twinkled with mischief. "Ah," he teased. "I made you smile."

"You did not," Duncan blustered.

"Did too."

"Did not."

"Did too, did too, di. . ." Cory's voice cut off abruptly as he stared at something over the highlander's left shoulder, his eyes widening dramatically. It couldn't be. Unthinkingly he shoved past the other man, moving closer to the display.

It was. There was a plaque next to the window speculating upon the origins of the custom made blade. Cory didn't care about that. He knew full well where it was from. He only had eyes for the weapon itself. It was a bastard sword, though the blade was undulated in the style of flamberge and the design of the hilt had a Celtic cast. His green orbs desperately ran over every inch of the weapon. He raised a hand, reaching out to touch, only to stop mere inches from the glass.

"Cory?" Duncan asked, concerned in spite of himself. This was not normal behavior for the light-hearted thief. He took a step forward.

Huh? Cory blinked, turning to face the other. After a moment to get his thoughts back in some sort of order, he gave the highlander his most charming smile. "Hey Mackie-boy," he said. "I need a favor."

The highlander looked at him suspiciously. "What kind of favor?"

"Just an itsy, bitsy loan," Cory replied, holding up two slightly spaced fingers to demonstrate. "I'll pay you back. I promise." He paused briefly before continuing. "I'll even earn the money honestly," he said earnestly. Holding down a steady job couldn't be that difficult.

Now Duncan's eyes flicked to the sword. "If you want it so badly," he whispered, mindful of the other people in the gallery. "Why don't you just steal it?"

The thief grimaced. "Because." He answered, voice equally quiet. "Despite what you may think I don't pull jobs on a whim." That was a sure fire to get one's self caught, which led to a stint in jail.

Cory could feel a sense of urgency building. If he didn't get the sword now it would end up in some private collection, and such things were not his specialty, more Amanda's, not to mention all the hassle of attempting to locate the item once it was sold.

The brunette looked Duncan straight in the eyes, allowing his true feelings to show. "Please MacLeod." He would beg, if that were what it took.

The highlander was silent a long moment. As far as he could remember, Cory had never actually called him by his given name before. It drove in the seriousness of the situation. "Convince me."

"That blade was a gift from my teacher."

Slowly Duncan nodded. "All right, I'll do it." A sigh of relief left Cory's lips at the highlander's proclamation, which only convinced him he was doing the right thing. He gave the thief a piercing stare. "Now go back to the loft, I will meet you once I'm finished."

The brunette looked like he wanted to protest, but he swallowed the words. There was no need to press his luck. Instead Cory nodded, turning to exit the building. In all honestly, he had never expected to see his sword again. At this point, he could afford to be a little patient.

When Duncan returned home, he found Cory doing his level best to wear a hole in the floor as he paced back and forth. Not that the highlander blamed him. For once, he could totally empathize with the other man. For an immortal, a sword was not merely a weapon. It was a part of them, as vital as a limb.

The thief looked up immediately. "Did you get it?" he asked.

In response the Scot pulled a black case out of his duffle bag, placing it on the end table. "Of course," he smirked. He had gotten a good deal on it too. Better than he had expected.

Cory was across the room like a shot, his nimble fingers unlatching the case and flipping it open. His breath caught in his throat. There it was. He ran his fingers lightly over the polished steel. It was in perfect condition, not a nick, not a scratch.

The thief closed his hand over the hilt, easily lifting the sword into the air. The fit was perfect. It felt like it had been made for him, which of course it had. Cory took a few steps back, both to give himself room and to assure the highlander he wasn't going to do something uncharacteristic, like try to cut the other's head off.

Slowly at first, but with increasing speed, the brunette ran through a brief series of kata. Ending in an overhead _en garde_ position that struck Duncan as strangely familiar, though the highlander couldn't recall where he had seen it before. A wide grin spread across Cory's face. "Perfect," he whispered. He turned to face the other immortal. "I'll get you the money by next week."

"Not so fast," Duncan put in. "I don't want money." He had plenty of money, more than he needed really. There were far better things he could use the debt for.

Curiously the bank robber cocked his head to one side. "What do you want then?" he asked.

The Scot shrugged, dropping into a nearby chair. "A story," he said, indicating the sword. "What happened?" Not even Cory would simply leave his sword behind. The other immortal wasn't that careless.

After a moment the brunette laughed softly, taking a seat opposite the highlander. "Why not?" he said. It was a small price to pay, all things considered. His dark green eyes went a little distant as he thought of the past. Where should he begin? When he lost the sword? Or perhaps earlier?

"When I was twenty-eight," Cory spoke at last. "I got myself in a bit of trouble. The sheriff was a horribly honest sort, and I couldn't talk him into letting me go."

Somehow Duncan couldn't find it in himself to be surprised that the other's first death had come at the hands of the law. He refrained from commenting however. "What did you do?" he asked instead.

Cory placed the blade across his lap, and slouched back into his seat. "Times were hard, and people had a tendency not to look a gift horse in the mouth." A grin flickered across his face. "I believe they call that plausible deniability nowadays. Anyway," he continued. "I wasn't about to let people starve if I could prevent it, so I made a habit of distributing venison to needy families."

"The king's deer?" the highlander questioned shrewdly, eyes narrowing. He had done the same thing a time or two himself over the centuries. That was one law he had never had much respect for.

The brunette nodded. "I had been doing it for years when I finally got caught," he admitted without guilt. In his mind, he had nothing to be guilty for. "And as you know, hunting the king's deer was a hanging offense. When it was all over, Matthew cut me down and took me on as his student."

"Lucky break that," Duncan thought out loud. "Another immortal wandering by." He had been on his own for years before Connor found him.

Cory snorted. "Hardly." At the highlander's questioning look he continued. "Matthew felt obligated you see," he said sarcastically. "On account of that he was the one who hung me."

For a few moments Duncan just stared, taken back. He wasn't quite sure what to say. Then another thought occurred to him. His brow furrowed as he flashed back to the sword move he hadn't been able to place before. "Not Matthew McCormick?"

"Matthew of Salisbury," Cory corrected. "But yep, that's him," he reached out to pour himself a drink. "I wasn't aware you two had met."

"It's a long story," the highlander murmured, still preoccupied with trying to connect the highly competent FBI agent to the carefree bank robber. It just didn't compute.

Noticing that Mackie-boy was still a bit out of it, the green-eyed man took it upon himself to finish the first part of the story. "Matthew gave me this sword and a pair of daggers the first time I managed to disarm him in a fair fight." He would just keep the fact that his teacher had promptly skewered him with a main-gauche to himself. At the time, Cory had been so stunned with his success he hadn't even thought to dodge.

"So how did you lose the sword?" Duncan asked, returning to the original subject.

Cory grimaced. He had been half hoping the highlander had forgotten, no such luck. That was not a time he liked to remember. But, he had given his word. The thief's gaze dropped to the mostly full cup he still held in his hand.

"It was March 1st," Cory began. "1886. I was passing through San Francisco. Due to, shall we say, a series of unfortunate events, I was in need of a new identity. Considering how many people came through the city, it seemed like a good place to start over," the brunette raised the glass to his lips, taking a small drink.

"I knew someone was following me. I had been feeling a presence off and on all day." The bank robber looked up to meet the other's eyes. "It was still a nasty shock when I turned a corner to come face to face with the Kurgan."

Duncan inhaled sharply, the blood draining from his face. The Kurgan?! Though he had never had the displeasure himself, his kinsman had told him many stories of that monster

Cory caught the look. "Yeah, that was about my reaction." He took another drink. "My immortal family isn't quite as close as you and Conner. But we still keep in touch, and I had more than enough information to realize just who I was facing." He laughed softly. "You know, I don't think I've ever been so terrified in my life."

The highlander didn't blame him.

The bank robber raised one hand in front of his face, staring at it. "I tried to hold him off, but he was just so strong. He got through my defenses, and suddenly my blade was flying out of my hand." He still had nightmares about that sometimes.

Duncan shuddered. He could imagine that far too easily. If things had been slightly different, if Conner hadn't been so careful, it could have been him. "How did you get away?" he asked.

"Luck mostly," Cory admitted. "He stopped to gloat. I took the opportunity to swipe him with my knives and ran. It was a fifty foot drop to the river, but at the time I couldn't care less." He finished off his drink before placing the empty cup on the table. "You know, I drowned three times before I made it to shore." That experience hadn't done anything for his dislike of water. If anything it had made it worse.

"And you never got your sword back," the highlander finished.

"I didn't even look." Matthew hadn't trained any fools. "For all I knew the Kurgan was still lurking around and as much as I value this blade, I value my head more."

"I'm sorry," Duncan said softly. Though truthfully, he wasn't quite sure what he was apologizing for.

"Eh," Cory shrugged carelessly. "What goes around comes around. I'm alive, the Kurgan's not, and life goes on." He stretched, the serious demeanor sliding off his skin like oil off water, an irascible grin spreading across his features. There were two soft thuds as he put his feet up one after the other. "You really should learn to lighten up Mackie-boy," the thief advised. "If you keep this up you're gonna give yourself gray hairs or something."

Duncan's left brow twitched. There was now a pair of dirty feet on his living room table. "Cory," he growled warningly. The bank robber didn't move, other than to lift his own eyebrows in a slightly different expression. Yes, everything was back to normal.

_Finis_

_I hope you all liked this_

_If the mood strikes me I might do more with Cory one day_

_He is such a cool character_

_On another note, there is a picture of Cory's sword on my insane journal_

_Check it out if you are interested_


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